Tuesday, January 1, 2008

The Cure for Common Leftovers

I don’t know about you, but after cooking 21 meals each week (breakfast, lunch and dinner) I wind up with a big stack of leftovers in my fridge. They are usually one serving of each different leftover, clearly not enough for a whole meal for all six of us. So my answer to not wasting all that food is to have a buffet night once a week.

I line up all the leftover casseroles, soups, breads, and meats on my kitchen counter and then we dish up our own plates with our weekly favorites. My kids just think this is the coolest. I have no idea why. But it not only cleans out my fridge and keeps us from wasting perfectly good food, but It’s one night a week I don’t have to cook.

What do you do with your leftovers?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

My husband eats them. He eats them all. He loves them. I love him! I hate leftovers.
Susan

Cottonista said...

We do the very same thing. Warm up your plate in the microwave, and dinner is served! (And then you get to wash all the empty leftover containers.)

carrie said...

Most of the time, I can use all of it or part of it in a re-creation dish of some kind. But I usually eat the small amount of leftovers myself for lunch. I'm not big on mac and cheese in a box, which is the preferred lunch here.

Also, many of the leftovers are great for grinding up into coarse baby food for the 11 month old. It saves a lot of money.

Anonymous said...

I like to make casseroles. If I combine a grain (rice or pasta), a vegetable (broccoli, spinach, califlower) and a bit of meat (chicken or ham) and add a simple white sauce it makes a pretty respectable casserole. White sauces are VERY easy to make and can be found in all basic cookbooks. Our family's favorite casserols has ham, pasta and mushrooms with a bit of romano cheese grated on top. After being baked 30-40 minutes this makes a good simple meal.

Good luck!

Sally

EEEEMommy said...

My husband takes them to work for lunch mostly, or we'll do what you do for lunch or dinner on the weekends, or I freeze them and use them in soups. You do this too, I recall. You ought to post that Works for me Wednesday post you did about leftover soup here.

justjuls said...

I typically make double meals - so we eat whatever I cook twice - and have whatever is left for lunches.

Sharon said...

My family doesnt like leftovers so one time my husband did a Fear Factor night. I pulled all the leftovers out and dished up 6 plates with various items and covered them with foil. We called the kids in and they all had to pick a plate... not knowing what was in them. It was very stressful LOL. Some were happy some were not. But the leftovers were gone!

Wendy said...

We call it the Alaskan Buffet at our house. In other words, clean out the fridge - warm up what you want. If you give it a fancy name it can be fun!

Amanda said...

I often repurpose them into something else -- leftover bits of meat go into a casserole or soup, etc. That, or my husband carries them to work for lunch. A friend of mine does the same thing as you and calls it "Encore night." We may be more purposeful about doing that just to use the cute title.

Precision Quality Laser said...

My kids and husband hate leftovers. My husband eats them grudgingly, but kids flat out refuse to touch them. They would prefer PB&J. I grew up with leftovers...so it has been a hard transition..lol.

I might just try buffet night..gotta think up a catchy name though...